Wednesday News: two new lawsuits, the dangers of digital, and Outlander trivia
Publishing NewsATT / Books / CDA / digital habits / dmca / Outlander / publicity rights / racism / Self-publishing8 Comments
‘A Gronking to Remember’ Becomes Memorable Lawsuit Against Amazon, Apple – An anonymous couple is suing erotica author Lacey Noonan for using one of their engagement photos on the cover of her self-published novella, A Gronking to Remember. What’s particularly notable about this case (which will be heard in federal court) is that the couple is suing all of the retail outlets that carried the book (which has since been pulled). Retailers will claim a legal safe harbor under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects internet service providers (which has found to extend to online services like Amazon and eBay) from liability for third party content, especially when they comply with a lawful take down notice. One question in this case will be whether Section 230 protects them from a publicity rights claim, and it will be interesting to see how far the case proceeds and whether the plaintiffs get any real traction against the ebook retailers (my guess is no).
“The cover of the book contains a photograph of the Plaintiffs which was taken as part of their engagement journey leading toward their wedding,” states the complaint. “The photograph was appropriated by the Defendants for commercial gain without the permission of the Plaintiffs nor with the permission of any lawful copyright holder.”
The lawsuit targets Noonan, and also Apple, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble for allowing readers to access the work in iBooks, Kindle and Nook digital formats. The plaintiffs — captioned as “John Roe” and “Jane Roe” — are asserting violations of their rights of publicity under Ohio law. –Hollywood Reporter
AT&T Hit With $100 Million Lawsuit, Company Accused of Culture of Racism; Byron Allen Group Also Turns Up Heat on AT&T — Including Targeting AT&T-DirecTV Merger – In the wake of Comcast and Time-Warner’s breakup, someone (Janine?) asked the other day about the fate of the AT&T – Direct TV merger. This new $100 million lawsuit filed against AT&T for cultivating a culture of racism may contain a hint. The suit joins a $10 billion claim filed against both AT&T and Direct TV by The National Association of African American Owned Media and Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios, who now want to amend their complaint (that AT&T discriminates against African American media companies) based on allegations in the new suit, which was filed by a 30-year veteran of AT&T. AT&T President Aaron Slator has apparently already been fired over a horrifyingly racist text message at the center of the new suit.
In a press release, NAAAOM said: “Ms. King has included Slator’s racist texts and photos in her lawsuit as irrefutable evidence of institutionalized racism within the top management of AT&T. This confirms and corroborates the December 3, 2014 $10 billion racial discrimination lawsuit filed against AT&T and DirecTV, by the National Association of African American-Owned Media (‘NAAAOM’) and Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios. That suit also named Slator as the executive who refused to meet with Mr. Allen, an African-American, or take or return his phone calls for close to two years while Mr. Slator took Mr. Allen’s white counterparts out to breakfast, lunch, dinner and golf outings at Mr. Slator’s country club.” –TV Week
Why can’t we read anymore? – An interesting piece from Hugh McGuire on how many fewer books he’s been reading in the wake of his digital use. McGuire’s thesis is that the science around digital information and dopamine demonstrates that we are becoming addicted to things like email, which provide us with the promise of new information, which, in turn, provides our brain with dopamine, which makes us “feel good.” And since we want to feel good, we seek out more and more opportunities to get that hit of dopamine, which means we’re more likely to keep hitting the refresh button on our email, rather than reading a book. Or listening to a song. Or talking to someone. McGuire has established some new rules in his life to change his habits, including various levels of digital deprivation.
So, every new email you get gives you a little flood of dopamine. Every little flood of dopamine reinforces your brain’s memory that checking email gives a flood of dopamine. And our brains are programmed to seek out things that will give us little floods of dopamine. Further, these patterns of behaviour start creating neural pathways, so that they become unconscious habits: Work on something important, brain itch, check email, dopamine, refresh, dopamine, check Twitter, dopamine, back to work. Over and over, and each time the habit becomes more ingrained in the actual structures of our brains. –Medium – Hugh McGuire
25 FASCINATING FACTS ABOUT OUTLANDER – 25 fascinating facts is an interesting title for this collection of, uh, tidbits, including Gabaldon’s defense of Outlander as “based on real world history” and the revelation that the UK Prime Minister didn’t want the TV series to premiere in Scotland until after the vote on national independence. –E! Online
I hope that couple wins their lawsuit against the author, because uploading a photo on the internet via social media shouldn’t mean that an author or publisher can put your image on their for-profit books/media. That’s just entitled and gross.
And while I don’t particularly think retailers should be held responsible for what authors (or publishers) are uploading, I also didn’t care for Amazon’s defense as stated in the lined article “Amazon is also raising other defenses: The cover photo from A Gronking to Remember is mere “incidental use.” The couple might have assumed risk by authorizing use (presumably by sharing the photo online). Damages are nonexistent.”
I don’t think any of those arguments are true: it’s not incidental use in my opinion, I don’t agree that sharing online means authorizing use and I disagree that damages are nonexistent.
Well THAT’s interesting about Outlander and the vote in Scotland. One has to wonder about the outcome if the show had been televised before. Personally, visiting the battlefield at Culloden made me horribly angry.
@Darlynne: The emotions that came up while visiting Culloden were agonizing…….I’ll never for forget the experience.
So the Hugh McGuire piece is fascinating, and he gives some good ideas for making changes that I want to try – but then he ends the article about cutting back on things like email with the fact he is starting an email newsletter about the topic???
I know what McGuire says is true for me.
I read more now that I have digital. Because I can. Because I can see to read it, because I don’t have to interrupt my day to drive all the way out to the library, because book browsing can be done in my own time and without any restrictions, like the wearing of pants.
Pants interfere with almost all worthwhile activities, imo.
On that Lawsuit thingie… it doesn’t say where the plaintiffs uploaded the photos.
Why is this important?
Because there are bunch of social media sites where “uploading a photo” = “social media site can sell it”.
For example, if the pictures were on Facebook, no matter their privacy status, the author could buy them from the site, and use it for whatever purpose.
Yes, it’s in the Terms of Service. Those you have to agree if you want to use the site.
And no, erasing them from the site doesn’t work. They keep copies of everything uploaded.